Clearly, it's easy to lose perspective about a game like golf. Golf combines so many variables, from weather and course design to individual players' physical abilities and mental attitude, that every round is different. Are fanatic golfers best envied or pitied? Have they found the secret of living large, or are they escaping from it? Are a driver, a putter, and a sunny day the keys to wisdom or the distractions that will forever keep someone from attaining it?
These are all questions that every golfer must grapple with. Thank heavens, however, we don't do that here. Instead, we offer arcane trivia, celebrity anecdotes, fun facts, and quotes from the best and worst golfers you've ever heard of. If you want to wrestle with the meaning behind the game of golf or learn how to psychically become one with your driver on a par 5, go buy another book. But if you want to know why they're called “duffers,” who has driven a golf ball more than a mile, and what it took to make Groucho Marx throw his golf clubs over a cliff at Cypress Point … well, this is your book. (Or at least it will be, when you take it up to the register and actually pay for it.)
Enjoy!
Erin Barrett
Jack Mingo